Family friend says Abedi fought in Libya twice
MANCHESTER bomber Salman Abedi begged his mother for forgiveness in an emotional phone call just hours before he committed mass murder, it has emerged.
A spokesman on counter-terrorism in Libya revealed the killer said “forgive me” to nuclear scientist Samia Tabbal as he made final preparations for the suicide bombing.
Details of the call emerged after Tabbal, 50, was quizzed by police in Tripoli. She was accompanied by Abedi’s Manchester-born sister Jomana, 20, who said he’d acted out of “revenge” for America dropping explosives on Muslim children.
She told the Wall Street Journal her brother had been kind and loving,
“I think he saw children – Muslim children – dying everywhere and wanted revenge. He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria and he wanted revenge. Whether he got that is between him and God.”
Abedi left Manchester College in 2013 after punching a girl for wearing a short skirt. He told his headmaster there were “a lot of things going on” with his family and that two of his brothers were fighting in Libya. It now appears Abedi went to join them and a family friend claims it was not his first foray into armed conflict.
The source said Abedi also went to Libya with his father during the 2011 uprising, aged just 16.
While there he fell under the influence of a radical preacher named Abdul-Basit Ghwela, according to a US official.
The Canadian dual national has been accused of recruiting young men to wage jihad. His own son Auwais, 20, died fighting in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, last year.
Abedi is said to have been injured in Ajdabiya while fighting for Islamists and was soon back in Manchester, studying at Salford.
The increasingly volatile 22-year-old was thrown out of a mosque earlier this year after erupting in anger when he was caught loitering in the building after prayers.
Abdullah Muhsin Norris of the Salaam Community Centre said he was “very easy to get upset”.
This April, fearing his son was descending into a life of crime, Abedi’s father Ramadan reportedly summoned him and his younger brother Hashem to Libya and confiscated their passports but the bomber apparently tricked his mother into returning his documents by telling her he was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The killer spent his final hours in a £75-a-night city centre apartment, which police later raided. He is thought to have been there as recently as 7pm on Monday. It is less than 3km from Manchester Arena where, shortly after 10.30pm that night, he triggered the bomb filled with nuts, bolts, screws and nails that killed 22 and injured 119.
Intelligence officers are examining the possibility he may have had an accomplice who watched him. Evidence from the crime scene leaked by the US apparently pointed to a remote detonator, to enable someone else to set it off. – Daily Mail